Bethesda starts taking Elder Scrolls Online beta applications

Epic trailer, but still no release date plans for beta or final release.

Bethesda Softworks announced today that it has started taking beta applications for the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online MMO based on its popular single-player RPG series.

The beta signup page features a live update of your chances of selection for the limited beta as you fill out information like previous MMO and RPG experience, play style, and system information for your computer. "Completing all the optional sections will significantly increase your chances of being selected for beta participation," the site advises.

Bethesda also used the beta signups as an opportunity to release a new five-minute CGI video promoting the game, shown below. The video is suitably epic—it would serve as an excellent trailer for a fantasy movie—but it bears only a passing resemblance to what actual gameplay will look like. I got a short preview of the game back at E3, where the creators stressed that quests would all factor into an epic storyline, without any of the pointless "kill ten rats"-style chores that plague other games. The developers went into more detail about their goals in a November preview trailer.

It's hard to get a real feel for this type of game without fully inhabiting it for a while. And it might be a while before we get that chance; the beta is still undated, and the game is only set for a vague "2013" release. Still, the Elder Scrolls series has definitely already put in the requisite world-building effort, and it has a suitably developed mythos to build an MMO on top of already. Then again, so did BioWare's The Old Republic universe, and that MMO has been strugglinga bit to live up to its lofty WoW-killer ambitions.

I got a short preview of the game back at E3, where the creators stressed that quests would all factor into an epic storyline, without any of the pointless "kill ten rats"-style chores that plague other games.

I'll believe it when I see it. Too many MMOs have made these promises and failed. And why shouldn't they? Killing rats to level up is a staple from 40 years of wargaming (D&D and more).

ArenaNet promised the world for Guild Wars 2 and - while the game is certainly fun - it did not at all live up to their vaunted promises of magical questing, no more "questgiver exclamation marks", etc. They delivered what is, for all intents and purposes, "just another MMO" - although with beautiful imagery, sound, and a great (IMO) character development system.

After the success of Skyrim, this game is going to have a lot to live up to. They can't just roll out a generic MMO system and be done with it. I'm interested to see what they can do with the game, but I'm not terribly optimistic that it'll be able to remove itself from the rather overwhelming shadow that Skyrim casts over it.

Is it just me, or does the meter that fills up as you fill out the beta entry form seem kind of silly? I mean, I filled out a handful of fields, and it listed me as "above average". Everyone is going to fill out those fields -- is everyone above average? How can that even be the case, using the definition of average?

I'll believe it when I see it. Too many MMOs have made these promises and failed. And why shouldn't they? Killing rats to level up is a staple from 40 years of wargaming (D&D and more).

Exactly, game companies keep promising the world and not delivering when they should just polish the content. WOW wasn't too bad because of the varied areas and creatures. Skyrim is just a repetitive dungeon craw (but still fun). I just dont have much hope because all indications are that this is just like the old republic (Same engine, attempt to gain publicity through amazing CGI instead of gameplay, relatively quiet on gameplay details)

Bioware's The Old Republic universe, and that MMO has been struggling a bit to live up to its lofty WoW-killer ambitions.

Wait, I don't recall the Devs for SWtoR making those claims. I recall it being the gaming community itself as making those proclamations. In any case, I believe a MMO can be successful without having to be a "WoW killer".

I believe this to be part of the problem. A new MMO comes around, and the gaming community starts the talk of "WoW killer" and when it turns out to be not as successful as WoW (one of the most successful MMOs to date) then all of a sudden it's a failure. I also believe the Development community needs to keep a realistic approach and outlook to the MMO game scene. After all, SWG shows that even a truly innovative game doesn't necessarily mean success when it comes to the gaming masses.

What they need to do is make Skyrim, but covering all of Tamriel. There's no possible way that graphics can get any better, so the next step is making larger game worlds. It baffles me why, after being successful with Skyrim, they decide to move in a totally different direction.

Also, for the love of god, TEST YOUR SOFTWARE AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE YOU SHIP IT!

What they need to do is make Skyrim, but covering all of Tamriel. There's no possible way that graphics can get any better, so the next step is making larger game worlds. It baffles me why, after being successful with Skyrim, they decide to move in a totally different direction.

Also, for the love of god, TEST YOUR SOFTWARE AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE YOU SHIP IT!

This. However, if the game world were bigger, I would want the ability to play with friends. Even a multiplayer version of this game set over the whole world would rock. I don't necessarily need an MMO, but playing all of Tamriel single player might get boring.

What they need to do is make Skyrim, but covering all of Tamriel. There's no possible way that graphics can get any better, so the next step is making larger game worlds. It baffles me why, after being successful with Skyrim, they decide to move in a totally different direction.

Also, for the love of god, TEST YOUR SOFTWARE AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE YOU SHIP IT!

Agree with the testing statement.

As far as making an Elder Scrolls (single player) game covering the whole game world would just be too much. I mean Tamriel is HUGE. Imagine the size of the install if they made that. That's why they break it up, each of the Elder Scrolls game covered a different part of Tamriel and it's indigenous race. This leaves them with plenty of material for future games. If they did it all at once, what other Elder Scrolls games could they make after that? Sure they could put out games with different story lines, but that would be it. The novelty of playing a new ES game in a new part of Tamriel would not be there because you would have already explored it all.

What they need to do is make Skyrim, but covering all of Tamriel. There's no possible way that graphics can get any better, so the next step is making larger game worlds. It baffles me why, after being successful with Skyrim, they decide to move in a totally different direction.

Also, for the love of god, TEST YOUR SOFTWARE AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE YOU SHIP IT!

This. However, if the game world were bigger, I would want the ability to play with friends. Even a multiplayer version of this game set over the whole world would rock. I don't necessarily need an MMO, but playing all of Tamriel single player might get boring.

Good point. I guess you could think of an MMO as crowdsourcing a chunk of the content generation to the players themselves.

I would just really like to be able to explore the whole world, because the only two previous games in recent memory covered only small regions of Tamriel, and the graphics and gameplay are so terrible I just can't get into them, so the rest of the world is just a complete blank for me.

Is it just me, or does the meter that fills up as you fill out the beta entry form seem kind of silly? I mean, I filled out a handful of fields, and it listed me as "above average". Everyone is going to fill out those fields -- is everyone above average? How can that even be the case, using the definition of average?

I got "above average" as well. I concidered going back and checking that I was a journalist, but didn't.

Maybe that would have counted against me anyway, one should think they'd want to control what is written about the game.

I love Bethesda but this will fail (by degrees), by the same guidelines that WOW has succeeded. WOW took an RTS and, using the lore, graphics, scope, and sense of humor, crafted a massive role playing game out of it. Bethesda is going to take the Elder Scrolls, a massive role playing game, and, using the lore, graphics, scope, and sense of humor, craft a....massive role playing game out of it? I'm not quite understanding that conceit. Why not just make another Elder Scrolls (like Bioware should have done with Star Wars)?

I think it can succeed if players were given "server kernels" (their own Tamriel, as it were), and, if they chose, to invite their friends into play. You can be adventuring in Daggerfall and your brothers are taking down some enemies in Cyrodil. Play is permanent, but enemies respawn. If your friend lives in Australia, and you in Chicago, you might stumble upon some of his handiwork next time you log in. You could also "start over". Of course, there would also be an option for people to play in the massive world with everyone else, with instances and respawns, and everything else.

I have to be honest, after being burned by SWTOR, I'm really not looking to dive into any MMOs for a bit. While I don't think it ever promised to be a WOW-killer, it did make it seem like it was going to be different. Unfortunately it was in only a very minor (voiced story!) way not really condusive to playing with large swaths of people.

I heard some great things about Guild Wars 2.

So hopefully this wont be a Guild Wars 2 clone?

I'm bored and just want something different. I don't care about the IP as much as I used to.

Yeah, this is a horrible idea. The Elder Scrolls universe is cool, but it is not nearly as accessible as the Warcraft universe is, and Bethesda is nowhere near as good at presenting a setting as Blizzard is. I think that an MMO in the Elder Scrolls setting will be a giant, pointless failure, which will suck up their time and distract them from their next single player game. I don't know what they could be thinking (although I'd love to be wrong).

I got a short preview of the game back at E3, where the creators stressed that quests would all factor into an epic storyline, without any of the pointless "kill ten rats"-style chores that plague other games.

I'll believe it when I see it. Too many MMOs have made these promises and failed. And why shouldn't they? Killing rats to level up is a staple from 40 years of wargaming (D&D and more).

ArenaNet promised the world for Guild Wars 2 and - while the game is certainly fun - it did not at all live up to their vaunted promises of magical questing, no more "questgiver exclamation marks", etc. They delivered what is, for all intents and purposes, "just another MMO" - although with beautiful imagery, sound, and a great (IMO) character development system.

Actually The Secret World heavily succeeded in making questing painless. I usually hate pve and find it a chore to go through to pvp but I actually enjoy questing and instances in the game. I picked it up when it went b2p. That being said, the pvp sucks but its a beautiful game with awesome story elements.

I got a short preview of the game back at E3, where the creators stressed that quests would all factor into an epic storyline, without any of the pointless "kill ten rats"-style chores that plague other games.

Epic storyline from Bethesda? Not bloody likely. They're good at world building, but they can't write a story (or dialog) to save their lives.

I have to be honest, after being burned by SWTOR, I'm really not looking to dive into any MMOs for a bit. While I don't think it ever promised to be a WOW-killer, it did make it seem like it was going to be different. Unfortunately it was in only a very minor (voiced story!) way not really condusive to playing with large swaths of people.

I heard some great things about Guild Wars 2.

So hopefully this wont be a Guild Wars 2 clone?

I'm bored and just want something different. I don't care about the IP as much as I used to.

Fallen Earth

The Secret World

Or perhaps the soon to be released Defiance.

*shrugs* Just a few suggestions. There are some MMOs out there that are different. And most are FTP so you can at least try them out to see if you like em.

I've soon some of the coverage so far for TES:Online and I have to say I'm disappointed.

From what I've seen, they're taking the normal 3rd person cam, ability bar route that pretty much all MMOs so far have done.

And that saddens me.

When they first announced that they were doing a TES:Online, I had (perhaps too-) high hopes that what Elder Scrolls has always been - which is a quick paced spell or sword action bound game that leads down in to dungeons filled with loot, baddies and lore - would be expanded to where you could group with people to experience that kind of game play.

Not some class-based, action button regression to statistical based game play.

But from everything I've seen, that's exactly what's coming.

And again, that makes me sad. I don't need WoW "Bethesda". I need an MMO worthy of the "Elder Scrolls" name and the franchise that has been built with it.

I have to admit, I'd personally prefer to see a 'multiplayer' version of Skyrim (a bit like diablo II in that a small group of people can co-op through together online) than a true MMO. I miss the human factor from the single player games, but agree with the 'how can you have an MMO without grind' comments. Some kind of combo (smaller quests done on individual small-group servers, world-changing battles/events done on dedicated MMO servers set up for the event along the style of Red Orchestra/battlefront i.e. limited by time/reinforcements for each side - hell, having other players trying to complete normal quests within the temporary battlezones would be interesting in itself) would be my ideal, but welding that sort of thing into a single game is more likely to result in a cluster**** than a winner.

I've soon some of the coverage so far for TES:Online and I have to say I'm disappointed.

From what I've seen, they're taking the normal 3rd person cam, ability bar route that pretty much all MMOs so far have done.

And that saddens me.

When they first announced that they were doing a TES:Online, I had (perhaps too-) high hopes that what Elder Scrolls has always been - which is a quick paced spell or sword action bound game that leads down in to dungeons filled with loot, baddies and lore - would be expanded to where you could group with people to experience that kind of game play.

Not some class-based, action button regression to statistical based game play.

But from everything I've seen, that's exactly what's coming.

And again, that makes me sad. I don't need WoW "Bethesda". I need an MMO worthy of the "Elder Scrolls" name and the franchise that has been built with it.

This is my fear. Because ultimately, being a huge Elder Scrolls fan, I will end up buying the game and end up being disappointed if they go the standard MMO cookie cutter template route.

If that trailer was representative of how the final game would be, I might be interested. But sadly that is not the case. From what I could tell from the other 'introduction ...' video its going to have the same crappy combat system seen in the other elder scrolls series.

I have to be honest, after being burned by SWTOR, I'm really not looking to dive into any MMOs for a bit. While I don't think it ever promised to be a WOW-killer, it did make it seem like it was going to be different. Unfortunately it was in only a very minor (voiced story!) way not really condusive to playing with large swaths of people.

I heard some great things about Guild Wars 2.

So hopefully this wont be a Guild Wars 2 clone?

I'm bored and just want something different. I don't care about the IP as much as I used to.

Fallen Earth

The Secret World

Or perhaps the soon to be released Defiance.

*shrugs* Just a few suggestions. There are some MMOs out there that are different. And most are FTP so you can at least try them out to see if you like em.

Much obliged. Any heads up on populations? When server populations crumbled is about when I gave up on TOR as i couldnt get a handful of people with a healer for one quest...for days

Taking 3 years to create a game to sell for $60 a piece is good, but taking 3 years to create a game that I can sell at $60 a piece and then collect $15 extra each month is better.

But how many MMOs can do that anymore. I see so many come out and try to do $15 monthly fee and in 6 months seem to have moved completely to a free to play setup. I'm not really interested in the time-sink that is an MMO, but I don't plan to ever pay a monthly fee in any MMO. I'll just wait for the free to play change to happen. Although, I gotta say that I'd be interested in a multi-player Skyrim/Oblivion/etc so I could consider this just for that.

That may or may not mean anything, though. Even if we assume that the different studio also means an entirely different set of devs (and not just a corporate identity for purposes of liability management, investor relations, or any of the other reasons corporate identities are created and discarded), it seems likely - I'd go so far as to say almost certain - that there are consulting resources involved.

If they're actually trying to do an Elder Scrolls world, for example, they'll want people who have worked with the geography, lore, races, art, etc. All those people work for Bethesda, and were previously dedicated to the single player games. I sincerely doubt they're going to try and maintain continuity by hiring dudes who didn't work for Bethesda, but have read all seven volumes of The Real Berenziah.

I have to be honest, after being burned by SWTOR, I'm really not looking to dive into any MMOs for a bit. While I don't think it ever promised to be a WOW-killer, it did make it seem like it was going to be different. Unfortunately it was in only a very minor (voiced story!) way not really condusive to playing with large swaths of people.

I heard some great things about Guild Wars 2.

So hopefully this wont be a Guild Wars 2 clone?

I'm bored and just want something different. I don't care about the IP as much as I used to.

Fallen Earth

The Secret World

Or perhaps the soon to be released Defiance.

*shrugs* Just a few suggestions. There are some MMOs out there that are different. And most are FTP so you can at least try them out to see if you like em.

Much obliged. Any heads up on populations? When server populations crumbled is about when I gave up on TOR as i couldnt get a handful of people with a healer for one quest...for days

The last time I played both there were plenty of people on. They've kept their servers numbers limited to increase population. Plus TSW uses what they call "Single server technology". One server, different "dimensions" (you pick a dimension upon character creation). This means anyone, anywhere, on any dimension can communicate and play with another person on another dimension.

I'm afraid that it's going to be hard to translate the feel of an Elder Scrolls game into an MMO, and this is going to be just another online RPG, only set in the ES universe. I'd rather have ES 6 with a co-op campaign.

I really wish they would move as far away from the traditional MMO "quest-based" model, where every player plays through the same set of quests even though hundreds of other people sharing the same world have already completed them.

Their PvP ideas seem like a decent starting point, where different factions can dynamically compete over territory, but I wish they would extend this sort of dynamic system throughout the world. If I'm going to share the world with other players, I want dynamic shared world elements so they can see teh effects of what I do, and vice versa. I don't want just a single player game design with multiple players thrown into it simultaneously.

If they feel that there must be "quests" in the traditional sense, they should all be dynamically generated based on the state of the world's dynamic elements. If goblins move into a cave and start raiding a town, generate some quests to go deal with them. Once someone wipes them out, stop generating that quest because the goblins are dead.

Minimize enemy respawn points, and put them in very inaccessible locations, but have enemies actively doing things in the world instead of just standing at their respawn point waiting for players to kill them. Instead of just frequently spawning a few goblins in each area where "goblins are supposed to be", occasionally spawn a whole tribe of thousands of goblins in the depths of some cave, and send them up in bands of 50-100 (with some elite leader goblins) to start seizing territory, and let the players as a whole dynamically deal with the invasion. Give the leaders a decent "strategy game" AI that can assess threats to their group as well as opportunities, and decide when to press an attack on nearby towns,m and when to retreat to a defensible cave. Let the goblins loot slain players and NPCs, and use their equipment.

Let players buy land and hire NPC guards to help defend it. Let people post their own "quests" for other players, offering rewards for accomplishing certain things, or bringing back specific items.

Here's the biggest change I would make:Make death permanent.

Most MMOs make the level-grinding process really slow to keep people from capping out really quickly. What I would do is have a power progression rate similar to single player Skyrim, and keep track of the highest level you had reached with any character. I would allow players to have several characters on one account, and whenever your character is lower level than your "highest ever" character, you gain at double rate. This way, if you want to try a different style character (while your main character is still alive), you can build up relatively quickly. If you die, you can also build up relatively quickly. If you keep several characters somewhat active, you can have spares in case you die.

This would lend itself to a very different game structure where you might not want to risk your high level character in a really dangerous situation, and a well organized group of mid-level characters could possibly take out a high level in PvP, and because of perma-death, this would be a significant accomplishment. It would encourage players to act more like the way people in a real world would behave

After years of avoiding MMOs like the plague, I tried my first and last MMO with SW:TOR.

There is simply no way to make the game long enough to warrant the fee and the subscription without resorting to endless amounts of grinding. I only made it to like level 40 and by that point had already killed several thousand creatures and bad guys including several hundred Sith (where do they all come from???).

The pacing and more timely reward structure of Skyrim simply aren't translatable into the MMO concept (as it currently is defined).

But as we've seen recently that model may be going away. I'd be much more likely to take a chance on this game if it were more of a mix of Skyrim + Spartan Ops. You don't really need a thousand players per server to have fun...how often do you actually get in a party with more than a handful of people (and how often does some random person running through your area ruin the "immersion"). If they just took the Skyrim type world and let me play with friends and gave me a series of good episodic content it would be a winner.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.